


Stitches

by write_away



Category: Torchwood
Genre: AU, M/M, Retcon, post-"Adam"
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-21
Updated: 2012-09-21
Packaged: 2017-11-14 18:47:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/518381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/write_away/pseuds/write_away
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ianto Jones had a good life - an average life. He woke up, he went to work, he went to bed, repeat cycle. Except - something felt missing. Something big. Like a hole in his heart and head, like a big, gaping rip through his entire being. </p><p>It was a good thing he had Owen Harper to stitch things up.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Stitches

**Author's Note:**

> Welp, first Owen/Ianto fic! I notice that this pairing has a rather limited pool of fics, so I hope to contribute a bit. This has a fair amount of angst.
> 
> This takes place post-"Adam" - I wanted to explore the possibilities of what lingering effects the fake memories he placed in Ianto could have. However, I messed up my timeline, so Tommy has happened and things are a little moved around. I'm sorry if that adds any confusion! And hey - it's AU! 
> 
> Sorry for any typos! I looked over it, but I may have missed something.
> 
> Enjoy!

Ianto Jones had a good life.

Perhaps it was a bit dull, but it was good. He woke up in the morning, brewed a strong cup of coffee, went to work. At work, he filed and typed and took a lunch break that usually consisted of wandering around aimlessly. At the end of the day, he returned to his empty flat. Dinner, call his mother and sister, watch the news, sleep. It was a strict routine. He liked it.

Sometimes, he felt that something was missing. Something crucial. Something big. Sometimes he felt so small in a world that was so impossibly big, yet he didn’t understand what was so huge about it. 

But he pushed the thought away. 

He couldn’t break routine. Breaking routine would break him.

\-------

The first break in routine was when Rhi changed their usual conversation. It generally went with the standard greetings, the standard relaying of the standard daily events, and then the standard goodbye. But one night, she changed course.

“You’re not right, Ianto. You haven’t been right for a while.”

His chest constricted painfully the way it always did when something went away from the way it was meant to. “What do you mean?” He tried to sound nonchalant, like he didn’t care. Like he wasn’t already falling apart at the seams. He held the phone between his ear and shoulder while he fixed himself a plate of cold leftovers.

She sighed. “Since that car crash. You haven’t been right and you know it.”

He flinched only because he knew she couldn’t see. “Stop.”

“Since you started this new job,” she plowed on.

“Stop!”

“Since –”

“I said to stop!” Ianto fought the instinct to slam phone on the table and hang up. He took a few breaths to calm himself, to stretch out his tightening lungs. “I don’t want to hear about the accident or my old job or Lisa. I’m fine.”

Rhi made an unsatisfied huff. “Well, what happened to that attractive bloke you told me about? I know you two broke it off, but why hasn’t he shown? Even at the hospital? You’d just dumped him, I’d have expected him to care a bit more.”

The plate went crashing to the ground, scattering lo mein, chicken, and broken china across the tiles. “Stop talking about him!” Ianto could hear his blood pulsing in his ears, into the head that throbbed with every breath. “I don’t know who you’re talking about so stop. I’m not interested in men. I never have been!”

A silence followed. “You really lost so much in the accident.”

“Rhiannon,” Ianto pleaded and tried to control his shaking hands. “Stop it.”

“It’s odd,” she mused aloud anyway. “Your memory has the strangest gap. From right after Lisa’s funeral to the crash. It’s all gone. And your job before Lisa’s death – fuzzy, isn’t it? Almost blocked out.”

His mind fought the triggers, bringing him to even harsher trembles. “Rhi, this isn’t funny.”

“Isn’t there some psychological jabber name for that sort of amnesia? Suppressing the bad memories, I mean? Sort of makes me wonder what that arse did to you that you’re forgetting him completely.”

“Rhi,” he said again.

She sighed even louder this time. “All right. Fine. But don’t work yourself too hard. You sound like you’re on the verge of collapse. Have you been sleeping? Eating?”

“Yes,” Ianto lied, only it wasn’t a lie. He was sleeping. He was eating. It just happened to be minimally. His appetite was curbed by the constant knot in his stomach. His sleep always disturbed by the gap. Caffeine was his life source.

They exchanged hasty goodbyes so that she could get on with her life and Ianto could get on with pretending he had one.

\-------

Ianto chose not to tell Rhiannon when he befriended a doctor for various reasons.

One: He had met him after a fainting spell.

It wasn’t really that big of a deal. He had simply collapsed on the way home from work on the sidewalk, likely due to exhaustion or malnourishment or a combination. He had woken up to a crowd of passerby and a young man kneeling over him, taking his pulse.

“Doctor Owen Harper,” he said quickly. “And you are fucking lucky that I happened to be passing by. I think you hit your head.” He probed a bump that was beginning the throb, none too gently. Ianto winced. “Yep, banged it right there. Bloody git, you probably deserved it. You look like you haven’t had a decent meal or sleep in months.”

“Ow,” was all Ianto could articulate, because besides pain and dizziness, he was filled with an overwhelming sense of comfort. Like the hole inside was patched – not fixed, but patched. The knot loosened just slightly.

He swore to take better care of himself when the doctor escorted him home. For some reason, he kept the promise.

Two: The doctor was quite attractive.

Ianto had sworn, up and down, that he wasn’t interested in men, that he never would be. That whatever had happened before he lost his memory was clearly a fluke. But he couldn’t stop thinking about Doctor Owen Harper. He couldn’t stop remembering the way his hands were rough and his grip, firm. The way his eyes were just vaguely familiar, as if he’d seen them before. 

The way that gap was closed just a little bit every time he pictured the doctor in his head.

Three: That wasn’t the last time they met.

For some reason, Ianto kept seeing him. Random places, too – on the way to work, in the coffee shop, in the grocery store. More than once, he had jokingly accused the man of stalking until a panicked look struck his face and he became flustered, nervous. They exchanged numbers that night and, though they bumped into each other less after that, they talked more.

It took a long time – two months nearly – but Ianto asked him out to dinner.

He didn’t know what took over his body, over his use of words. He only knew that with Owen, he was at ease. The tension lifted from his shoulders. He was breaking apart from the break of routine, but the doctor was stitching him together haphazardly.

The man’s work schedule was just about crazy, but they finally worked something out. Owen seemed hesitant, but it took just a little prodding to make him give in.

Ianto decided not to tell Rhiannon, just in case it didn’t work out. 

Part of him hoped it wouldn’t.

A bigger part of him – the part that was mostly missing – hoped it did.

\-------

Their relationship was confusing.

Drinking. A lot of it. A way to let go of barriers and forget who they were, forget their losses – Owen from the loss of his girlfriend and Ianto from the loss of, well, who knew what?

Sex. A lot of it. A catharsis that meant nothing to either at first, but eventually became a crutch to live for.

Secrecy. A lot of it. Owen claimed that his coworkers and friends could never know and Ianto kept the meetings quiet anyway.

On and off like crazy. Sometimes Owen refused to do anything but sit together, watch a crappy movie, and drink while they talked about other people in their lives – a woman named Katie, a woman named Tosh for Owen. A woman named Lisa, a man he couldn’t recall for Ianto. Those were the off nights. Those were the nights where their affections were anywhere but on each other. Where they made scathing comments, cruel comments that they later deflected once the alcohol wore off.

Ianto kept it going because Owen was familiar. He knew him – he was sure of it. He was a piece of the missing past. There were little hints all the time. The man knew quirks about him that even he hadn’t been able to identify. He let slip information that he hurried to cover up. He refused to admit that they had once known one another.

But Ianto knew. He just did. His instincts told him as much.

He didn’t know why Owen kept it going. He seemed to genuinely care about his wellbeing, about his health, about his sanity. He pressed for him to get help, pressured him into eating. When they were on, Ianto ate full meals and got (almost) full nights of sleep. Owen seemed satisfied then. Relieved. 

They never discussed going out together. It was less of a relationship and more of a release. More of an easy way to share the bed with a warm body.

“I could change your life,” Owen whispered in his ear hoarsely one day at the break of dawn. Ianto was pinned underneath him, shivers down his back at the mere brush of hot air against his ear. “I could do it with just a few words.”

“How?”

Owen shut his eyes and shook his head. “I can’t. It’d kill you. It’d change you. But kill you.”

Ianto shrugged the best he could in his position and kissed his neck, tasting the other man experimentally and wondering if he should get more sleep before work or try to convince him to go for another round.

“Too bad,” he said. “Shouldn’t you be getting home to Tosh?”

Owen snorted. “Tosh and I are not together.” He rolled off of Ianto and pulled the blankets up to his chin. “If we were, I’d be shagging her and not you.”

Ianto laughed, the knot in his stomach tightening again. “Don’t leave,” he said and inwardly cringed at how pathetic he sounded. But he couldn’t risk it. He couldn’t fall back into that dullness again, that dreary gap of memory that just kept expanding. Owen kept him grounded, even if he only brought more questions with every appearance, every shared night.

Owen tangled his fingers through Ianto’s hair lazily. “I won’t.”

\-------

“You’ve been absent lately,” Rhi commented. “Mam said you didn’t call her yesterday.”

Ianto shoved Owen’s feet away from his legs. They were bloody cold and distracting and he was really trying to have a conversation on the phone. “Oh, yeah. Dinner with a friend last night. Forgot to let you two know.”

“Friend?” Rhi asked suggestively as Owen mouthed the same thing and gestured to his bare chest. “What kind of a friend?”

“A good one,” Ianto said shortly and traced his fingers up Owen’s calf to make him stop gesturing obscenely. The man shuddered and reciprocated, effectively distracting Ianto even more. 

“A, uh, woman friend?” Rhi pressed on eagerly.

Ianto pushed Owen away gently. “No, no, not a woman friend,” he said honestly. “Just a friend.”

Owen rolled his eyes at the clear disturbance to his teasing and tugged Ianto’s boxers down. Ianto tried to suppress a yelp as cold fingers made contact. 

“Are you all right?” Rhi asked.

“Stubbed my toe,” he responded in a strangled voice. 

“Hang up on her,” Owen whispered. Ianto pulled the blanket over his head in retaliation.

“Listen, Rhi, I’ve got to go,” he said, because Owen was not deterred by anything when he had a mission. “I have – I have plans.” He slapped Owen at the back of the head, but the man continued to outline Ianto’s body with his tongue.

“With a friend?” Rhi joked.

“Yes, with a friend!” Ianto stiffened and aimed a harmless kick at Owen’s leg when he pinched his arse.

“Friend?” Owen whispered again.

“Friend,” he hissed, a hand over the receiver. “Rhi –”

“I get it, I get it.” He could almost see her rolling her eyes. “You’re involved with someone and don’t want me to know. Is it mystery man? Did you uncover your memories? You could have told me, you know. Bring him around, I want to meet this bloke.”

“He is not mystery man!” Ianto had enough. He pushed Owen hard enough to send him tumbling off the bed.

“Oi!” Owen shouted too loudly.

“He slept over?’ Rhi obviously wasn’t going to let him go any time soon. “You had someone stay the night? How long have you been – y’know, shagging men?”

“Rhiannon!”

“Oh, come off it. The kids are outside and Johnny’s at work. Won’t tell ‘em that you’ve gone bender if you don’t want me to. Tell me more. So you’ve uncovered memories?”

Owen jumped up from the floor and wrestled the phone out of Ianto’s hand. “Rhiannon, I assure you that your brother has uncovered no old memories but is simply making new ones. Which, I might add, you are interrupting. Lovely to speak to you, I’ll make sure he calls back later. Goodbye.” He hung up, threw the phone across the room, and threw himself over Ianto. 

“That was rude of you, not to mention unwanted.” Ianto let himself be dragged under the covers regardless. 

“Yeah, well, I’m impatient.” Owen seemed content with torturing him slowly despite the apparent desperation. “And I’m not your friend.”

“What are you then? My part time shag?” 

Owen grinned mischievously. “Oh, if only you knew the irony in that.” He kissed his neck, speaking with his lips still against skin. “Tosh and I aren’t going to work out.”

“Why?” Ianto wondered when it became all right for them to talk about other possible lovers while in bed.

Owen kept moving his fingers further and further down. “Because she’s with Tommy.” His grabs got rougher, less gentle.

“Tommy?” 

“New guy at work. Kind of. He’s already gone, but she’s not getting over him any time soon. Haven’t got a chance.” 

Ianto rolled them over by gripping Owen’s shoulders. “Sorry to hear that.”

Owen smirked. “No, you’re not. You’ve got me to yourself now. Too bad I’m still competing with mystery man. And Lisa, for that matter.”

Ianto bent down to kiss Owen. “Don’t remember mystery man, remember? And Lisa…” He blinked rapidly. “Can’t compete when someone’s dead or I’d be fighting Katie.”

Owen kneed him in the gut and growled. “Enough.”

“You brought it up first.” 

Owen rolled his eyes and grabbed Ianto’s wrists. “Let’s just fuck already. I hate talk.”

Ianto couldn’t argue with that notion.

\-------

The gap was stitched messily, but it was sewed shut. Ianto couldn’t claim a boring lifestyle anymore. He spent his days at work waiting for illicit (often dirty) texts from Owen. He spent his evenings in either his bed or Owen’s, sometimes alone thinking about not being alone, sometimes not alone doing exactly what he had been fantasizing about. 

Either way, that gap of memory didn’t bother Ianto as much. It still tickled his mind, especially around Owen, but he wasn’t drowning in the space. He wasn’t suffocating on the loss. His ankles were merely wet with it.

What he was drowning in, however, was sheer confusion and emotion. 

“I don’t do relationships,” Owen said for the millionth time as they walked down the snowy street. “Not with emotions or lovey dovey shit.”

Yet they were walking with their hands entwined. 

So Ianto was a bit lost. “Right,” he said. “Because we’re going out for a romantic dinner that you organized due to not having any emotions.”

Owen squeezed his fingers tightly. “Oh, bugger off. Let’s just hope that we don’t run into any of my coworkers.”

That was a constant worry of Owen’s. From what Ianto had heard, Owen’s bisexuality was no secret and no problem in his office. But Owen claimed that Ianto specifically would be a problem with them. He didn’t understand, but that wasn’t even the tip of the iceberg. “What do you even do?” Ianto had been pressing for this information for weeks.

“I’m a doctor,” Owen said as expected.

Ianto wrenched his hand away and wrapped his arm around Owen’s shoulders. “But where?”

“I’m independent. Sort of.” Owen shrugged him off. “In here, you git.” He pulled him inside a swanky restaurant that washed warmth over Ianto and thawed out his ears. 

“Nice,” he said, looking around. He felt like he’d been here before, but it was in the depths of his mind. Completely inaccessible. But he’d definitely been here with someone else before. On a date. Definitely a date. He voiced this to Owen, who nodded.

“Don’t doubt it,” he mumbled and told their reservation to the host. They were led to a small table in the back, out of most of the public view. 

Ianto slid into his seat, still holding Owen’s hand underneath the table. The other man flipped through the menus with his other hand, completely absorbed in anything but Ianto. “Do you want alcohol or do you want to wait until we get back to your flat?”

Ianto shrugged. “Whichever you want.”

“Wine, then.” Owen shut the menu with a sort of finality. “We need to talk.”

Ianto raised his eyebrows. He could almost feel the stitches in the gap fraying. “You’re going to break up with me and then take me back to my flat to get drunk and have break up sex.” He leaned back in his chair, removing his hand from Owen’s. “Why am I not surprised?”

“I’m not breaking up with you,” Owen said defiantly. “It’s… worse.”

“You’re dying?” Ianto tried to conceal the actual concern in his voice.

Owen shook his head rapidly. “No, no. I don’t do emotions and shit,” he said again. “But…” he sighed. “I’m going to get slaughtered by so many people for this, but… I’ve gotten… attached to you.” He snarls the end and Ianto wishes he didn’t detect the disgust. “I never thought that’d happen. Nothing against you, of course, but… It’s just supposed to happen.”

“And?” Ianto wasn’t sure where Owen was going with this declaration, but the hole was patched up again instantly. The ache in his chest, the throb in his head, they both lessened. 

“And… I’m not really sure what to do. Because the last time this happened, she died.” Owen smiled grimly. “I’d appreciate it if you didn’t do that. Then I’d really be slaughtered.”

“Duly noted.”

Owen’s eyes pierced him and Ianto could see him peeling away the layers with just his mind – the layers of his suit and the layers of his mental barrier. “I need to tell you something else. But only if you want to be involved with me.”

Ianto thought about this and rested his elbows on the table, leaning forward slightly. “Is this an ultimatum?”

Owen’s expression didn’t change, but his eyes darkened. “Yes. Do you think you can handle it?”

Ianto sucked on his bottom lip. The gap was about to get bigger. He just knew it. He could feel the tear in his gut already. But Owen could patch it up. And he was already aware that Owen knew more than he’d previously confessed. “You knew me before I fainted.”

Owen grimaced. “Yes.”

“You know who my mystery lover is.” Ianto swallowed the lump in his throat. Answers – answers he needed, answers he didn’t want.

Owen flinched violently. “Yes. Oh, I am so dead. “He buried his face in his hands. “His name is Jack. He’s… he’s my boss. He was your boss. You broke up with him.” 

Ianto bit down on his lip. The gap had ragged edges now. The name was a trigger and it hurt. The seams had been torn open cruelly. “Jack,” he repeated, rolling the name off his tongue easily. “Jack what?”

Owen scowled. “Does it matter?”

Ianto stared at him levelly. “You wanted to tell me.”

“Harkness,” Owen spat. “Bloody Captain Jack Harkness.”

“Captain Jack Harkness,” Ianto echoed to himself. It sounded… right. Inexplicably right. “We were involved?”

“Very.” Owen rolled his eyes. “You shagged the boss almost every night and were still the tea boy, though. So I don’t know how good the benefits were.”

Ianto tossed this new information around his head for a moment, barely realizing when Owen ordered food and drinks for the both of them. “Tell me more,” he decided when his inner pain threshold seemed able to handle it.

Owen hesitated, but came forth with more information. “You only met me because Jack had us… stalking you. Like you guessed. We were taking turns making sure that you were all right. But we weren’t supposed to interact unless absolutely necessary.” He shook his head and looked away. “If you hadn’t bloody fainted, we wouldn’t be in this mess. I wouldn’t have gotten involved – I wouldn’t have bloody gotten attached. I don’t get attached! But Katie – and you – I don’t know what the hell it is about you, but I did. If you could fucking take care of yourself, I wouldn’t be dragging you back into the life you escaped!”

“What did I escape?” Ianto hadn’t meant to ask. The words tumbled out of his mouth before he could control them. Every molecule of him was telling him to stop, to go no further or he’d be hurt.

It was too late.

One word brought everything crashing down. “Torchwood.”

\-------

They left the restaurant almost instantly. Owen supported Ianto’s staggering frame on the walk. Even though it was only his head that hurt, the pain was jabbing every part of him. It felt like his lungs had needles sticking into them, like his arms and legs were slashed open, like the stitches in his stomach were being pulled open with a dull knife.

He still didn’t know everything. It was just echoes, vague images. Aliens, cyberpeople, blood, Lisa, so much blood that his stomach was turning. A woman with a hole in her head, a new woman named Gwen to replace her. Cannibals, a young woman named Tosh, a cleaver to his neck. Owen, a shot into the shoulder, a yelp of pain. He could aim a gun? He could shoot one? An attractive man with blue eyes that he could stare into for days, that man dead, that man alive again, that man. Jack.

Too many feelings to comprehend. Too many memories to handle at once.

The first thing he did once Owen opened his front door was wrench himself from the grip and run to the bathroom to retch. 

“It’s all right,” Owen soothed and rubbed his back. “Just… get it all out.”

A journal with talk of a man named Adam that he had never met in his life. Accounts of murder, of lives slipping away beneath his own hands. Not being able to completely shake the nightmares of killing. Kissing Jack fiercely, kissing him lustfully, missing him, wanting to hold him but instead pushing him away at disgust at himself. At the blood. At the aliens. At the horrors.

More retching. More soothing that he barely heard.

Telling the blue eyed man that he couldn’t do it anymore, that he couldn’t be near him. Leaving a note. Sneaking past Owen to steal a full bottle of pills. Going home, hiding all the photos, all the evidence. Rhiannon calling mid-breakdown. Telling her about a breakup to stop her questions. Hanging up, getting in the car with the pills, driving straight into a tree. Barely conscious, bleeding everywhere, head throbbing. Swallowing a handful of pills. 

The gap. The hole. The glimpses of familiar faces that he pretended didn’t exist. 

He gagged on his vomit and Owen pushed hair off his sweaty forehead. “It’ll feel better once it’s all settled back into your brain,” he promised. “God, I am so sorry, Ianto. So sorry.”

“Bloody Torchwood,” he managed to gasp before another wave of nausea hit him.

\-------

It was odd to get into bed with Owen after recovering his memories. Owen was, for once, fully clothed underneath the covers, but Ianto still kept to his side.

“Why?” he asked, staring at the wall and not Owen. “You hated me.”

Owen also watched the wall. “I dunno. Never really hated… besides, can’t deny that you’re an attractive bloke.”

Ianto blushed and ducked his head. “You could have told me that you weren’t interested. You could have stayed out of my life.”

“But I was interested.” Owen sighed. “Maybe at first it was supposed to be… a cheap thrill. I mean, deliberately disobeying Jack and pursuing you in a relationship? A sexual one, to make it worse. Hell if I wasn’t going to go for the adrenaline rush. But then… I got attached. And you were in pain, even if you hid it. So I had to tell you the truth.”

“I am in pain,” Ianto said hoarsely. His memories were swirling around crazily. Part of him wanted to grab Owen and shag until he forgot everything again, but another part of him was aching to get out of bed and hunt down Jack.

“I know.” The two syllables dripped with his own anguish. “I’m so sorry. You didn’t want to remember. You left the note. You asked us to not tell you. I shouldn’t have.”

Ianto sighed. “You shouldn’t have,” he agreed. “I think I’m in love with him, Owen.”

Owen slowly turned his head. “That’s okay,” he said confidently. “I’m sure he still loves you, too. If Jack Harkness can love, that it.”

“He can.” Ianto trembled when he reached out for Owen. He closed his hand over his wrist and pulled him closer. “I think I’m in love with you.”

If Owen was surprised, he didn’t show it. He simply shifted his body so it fit into Ianto’s curves perfectly. “That might be a problem.”

Ianto nodded and rested his chin on Owen’s hair. The warmth, the closeness – tying up the ragged wound neatly now. “It might.”

\-------

He met Torchwood again on Christmas. 

“Rhiannon, I’m telling you, it’s nothing to worry about,” he sad into his mobile as they walked down the snowy streets. “This happens every year in London.”

“But Ianto –”

“It’s terrorists,” he lied smoothly and ignored the squeeze Owen gave his arse in response.

“Aliens,” Owen hissed in his ear.

Ianto nudged him quiet. “Have a merry Christmas, Rhi. I’ll come by tomorrow to give the kids their gifts, but I’ve really got to go.”

He hung up before she had the chance to protest and linked his ankle with Owen’s, threatening to trip him. “Pervert. Jack won’t like that.”

Owen regained his balance. “Jack’s not going to like any of this.”

Ianto slowed. “Did you warn him?”

“Sort of.” Owen yanked him forward. “I told him that you knew. That I was bringing you to the Hub Christmas party.”

Ianto eyed him skeptically. “He doesn’t know that we’re coming together, does he?”

Owen opened his mouth, then shut it. “Ah. No.”

“Jesus, we’re dead.” 

“No, we’re not.” Owen jumped onto the curb and Ianto followed. The motion was familiar, yet so foreign. It’d been so long.

“Well, not yet,” Ianto conceded. 

They descended into the Hub and the pit in Ianto’s stomach grew. Fresh images bombarded him. The pizza girl. Suzie, back from the dead. Jack in the morgue. 

He was going to vomit again.

“Owen! Ianto!” Tosh’s voice cried out from the computers. She ran up to them enthusiastically and threw her arms around each, one at a time. Her hug was strong and full helped Ianto feel like he was more put together than he really was. He hugged her back and kissed her forehead. He’d missed her. “Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas,” he returned and Owen did the same.

It took under ten seconds for Gwen and Jack to follow Tosh to the lift. 

“Ianto!” Gwen threw herself at him, so he picked her up and swung her around once or twice. She laughed hysterically and hugged him, tears only visible at the close proximity. “God, it’s been too long.”

“I agree,” he said and set her down. 

“Hello? Gwen Cooper, don’t I get one of those?” Owen teased and poked her in the ribs. She rolled her eyes and flipped him off.

“You know we all prefer Ianto. He makes coffee.”

Owen smirked. “Which I had two cups of this morning,” he bragged.

Gwen smacked Ianto on the shoulder playfully. “No playing favorites, where is ours? We’ve been deprived!”

“Clearly, Ianto had other things on his mind this morning.”

Jack’s voice rang in Ianto’s ears for the first time in months. A fresh shiver ran through his spine. Jack sounded the same as always – authoritative, confident, and wanting. 

He also sounded mad.

Ianto’s hand flew to the fresh mark on his neck and Owen gulped. “Shit,” he muttered. “Jack. It’s… been a while, hasn’t it?” He tried to smile, but the twists in his stomach were pulling in two different directions. The gap was tearing again, letting uncertainty and insecurity seep through.

Owen took a step away.

Jack’s eyes flicked back and forth accusingly. “It has,” he said. His footsteps echoed in the silence as he closed the distance. For the only time in Ianto’s memory – which was, admittedly, still muddy – he was hesitant. Like he was holding back. With a deep breath, he pulled Ianto into a hug. “It’s been hard for us all without you.”

Ianto was torn between wanting to stay in Jack’s arms longer and wanting to relieve Owen of the intense jealousy that was nearly radiating. He forced himself to pull away – he was with Owen. Not Jack. He’d left Jack ages ago. This wasn’t fair to Owen.

But it sure as hell wasn’t fair to him, either. 

Ianto searched for words while blue eyes searched him. “Glad to be back, sir,” he finally managed. He couldn’t even tell if it was a lie.

Jack licked his lips. Owen stepped forward in a rare moment of protectiveness to take his hand. Ianto simply tried to breathe. Owen on one side, Jack in front of him – the frustration, the confusion was just about to kill him. New lust or old? New memories or old?

He wondered how high the bets between Tosh and Gwen were, extricated himself from Owen’s grip, and went to go check if they’d absolutely destroyed his coffee machine.

This was Torchwood, after all. Even on Christmas, there were priorities.

And God help any poor alien that stumbled through the Rift on a holiday when nobody had decent caffeine. 

\-------

Blood.

So much blood.

All over Owen. Pouring from his chest. Dripping from his mouth. 

Blank eyes.

Loose grip on Ianto’s hand.

He couldn’t think. He couldn’t see. Sounds were muted – Martha was soothing him, trying to stem the bleeding from Owen, but it was too late. Jack was shouting and shooting and a body dropped with a thud. But it was too late.

Owen was dead.

Ianto’s dilemma was suddenly so much simpler, because one embrace was cold and the other was warm.

But at the same time, it was so much worse.

He sobbed brokenly over another corpse of another love.

No wonder he had gone though Hell to get out of this world.

 

\-------

Blood. Aliens. So much blood. 

It hadn’t been hard the first time. He didn’t know why he expected it to be difficult the second.

His few moments alone with Jack were full of chaste kisses and innocent hugs, comforting words and soothing gestures, lies.

His few moments alone with Owen were full of confession, of admittance, of truth. 

He wanted to have the same thing with Jack, but that was impossible. Only a dead man can keep a secret.

He slipped the bottle into his inner coat, deposited his stopwatch with Gwen, and slipped out of the Hub just as Jack returned, muddy and manic with a glove.

Ianto didn’t need another two minutes with Owen. He needed to forget all of the moments they shared.

\-------

Ianto Jones had a good life. 

Dull, but good.

Wake up, drink coffee, go to work. Come home, talk to Rhi and Mam, go to sleep. Repeat the cycle.

And if he ever stumbled on a box full of pictures, a box full of notes written in chicken scrawl and loops – different people, he could gather – he shoved it back into the depths of his armoire and took another white pill as the instructions told him. Those were in his own handwriting. He trusted those.

And then he’d forget by morning.

If he ever saw a pale, corpse-like man, he took a pill. If he ever saw a man with blue eyes and a trench coat, he took a pill. It wasn’t healthy but it kept the ragged edged wound stitched shut.

Everything was missing from his life. He just didn’t know what “everything” was.

He resigned to the unknown.

It was less dangerous than letting his stitches break, his wound open, his blood pour out.

Because they were the only things stopping him from breaking.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!


End file.
